Interest and access to precious metals has skyrocketed in recent years and gold has found its way into many advisors’ clients’ portfolios. Today’s market may have investors reassessing their allocation to this precious metal as prices have fallen from highs.

Yet, gold’s role in a portfolio goes well beyond the price. Gold is a non-correlated asset and can play an important role in any market cycle.

Understanding how gold ETFs work, expenses, liquidity and how physical gold is stored

The panel features David Mazza from State Street Global Advisors, and Juan Carlos Artigas of the World Gold Council. State Street and the WGC collaborated to launch SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEArca: GLD), the largest bullion-backed ETF in the world.

“After falling sharply over two days in mid-April, many investors are beginning to question the role that gold should play in their portfolio. Gold’s recent decline was certainly steep, but it wasn’t unprecedented. In fact, gold has seen seven pullbacks of more than 10% since 2001. After each drop, gold went on to not only rebound but to post new highs,” Mazza writes in a white paper.

“This trend highlights the need to understand both the short-term and long-term drivers of the price of gold in order to see why gold remains a key element to a diversified portfolio,” he added.